Who: Cousins Hawke & Maia, with appearances of Bethany, Carver and Gamlen What: A family reunion of sorts where they discuss Flemeth and Thedas things When: Recent! Where: The Hanged Man Rating/Warnings: Low, mostly Status: Complete!
It was after hours at The Hanged Man, meaning it was closed to the public and the dawn would disperse the night sky, but that didn’t exactly mean the establishment was anywhere near empty. Maker’s arse, not at all - it had turned into some sort of impromptu family reunion with Maia’s appearance, and when the infamous Hawke Twins (sweet Bethany and sourpuss Carver) were added to the mix it was a grand time.
Then, of course, there was Gamlen.
“How the hell are we related again?” the notorious uncle squinted the Warden, slurred and heavily intoxicated with his last glass of Rat’s Droppings. Carver was tempted to pry his old grimy hands off the glass, but he was also doing his duties by making sure the tables were wiped clean of sticky alcoholic residue.
Hawke was seated at the bar like a patron, trying not to laugh (underneath the scruff on his face were pink cheeks, warm from drinking), and Bethany rolled her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time since Gamlen spoke.
“Yes, he’s like this all the time,” explained the eldest Hawke. At this point in life he was beyond being irritated at his uncle. Best to laugh at him, because the poor sod was at least somewhat amusing with the kind of trainwreck he brought to their bloodline.
“How have you not thrown him out on his arse?” Maia said, lifting a mug to her lips to take a long swig. There was something grand about actual alcohol from the dreams and she was taking advantage of it. Reaching over, she poked her … well uncle, she supposed? The drink made her accent more resoundingly British. “My mother was your cousin.”
“That explains it,” Gamlen exclaimed like an epiphany reached him for the tenth time - Maia had said that before, didn’t she? Balls, he couldn’t remember. “You have her nose and everything.”
Andraste’s knickers, his uncle was full of it, wasn’t he? Hawke’s sigh came with a throaty chuckle. “We’ve had to a couple times. Carver tends to be a little more sympathetic towards him, though, so we try not to hurt his feelings in the process too.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Carver groused.
There was an invisible ignore button that was pressed, and the mage took a sip of his bottled beer. “It’s a bloody miracle we haven’t done this before. Seems like a long time coming. Related and we dream of the same place. Odds of that are impressive.”
Maia stuck her tongue out at Gamlen, but laughed uproariously. “It really is impressive. I don’t know many details about Kirkwall though. Never had cause in the Circle and then things got really busy for a few years in Ferelden. My dreams stopped after I went through an Eluvian after Morrigan, except for some bits and pieces here and there.” She remembered Morrigan, and the baby. They’d almost had a little family before circumstances had driven them apart again. In the dreams, they were never meant to be.
“Mother never really talked about your side of the family here. I admit I’ve always been a little curious.”
Everyone knew about the Hero of Ferelden, much like everyone knew of the Champion of Kirkwall, and then the Herald of Andraste. He’d at least met Trevelyan in his dreams, but he’d never gotten the privilege to meet the Warden - here, the three of them really did need to get together and share some adventurous stories and how the bloody hell they all ended up with such interesting misfits.
“Wasn’t Morrigan the arc--”
“Leandra practically fell for a peasant, is what had happened,” Gamlen went on, shamelessly interrupting Hawke’s inquiry to elaborate on the past failures of his sister. “Rest her so--”
Bethany interjected. “Don’t. Stop it, Uncle, we’re done, and you need to stop drinking. Carver, help me bring him upstairs.” There were some rooms for lodging purposes on the second floor inspired by the medieval era her brother dreamed of, they could stow him in there.
Hawke waited until the twins carried off the babbling drunk before speaking. “He’s not wrong,” he winced. “My mother chose love over family and inheritance. Not once did she regret it, but it caused quite a rift. I suppose you could say we were shunned? Gamlen’s the only one I know of the Amell aside - well, there’s you, now. I hope the lot of you are mostly sober?”
“Love is a worthy enough reason for just about anything.” Maia rubbed her arm, thoughtfully looking up towards the stairs. She turned her attention back to Hawke. “Aside from trying to outdrink a Qunari and a Dwarf, I’m typically sober. Though with who my mother-in-law is going to be I may need more ale.”
Oh, he agreed wholeheartedly with that statement. Leandra and Malcolm didn’t have much to their name but they were happy, and provided their children everything they could have needed. Hawke had no regrets of his childhood. It wasn’t perfect, and perhaps his father had to work too much but he’d taught them all many things - their mother, too.
Only regretful thing to even dwell on were their early deaths.
“A noble cause,” he grinned. “But congratulations on your nuptials. Who is the lucky person, by the way? Have they gone through the proper vetting process?”
Maia smiled. It was fond and bright and the kind of smile of someone who was head over heels but never liked to admit it. “Morrigan, and considering I wouldn’t have survived the Blight without her, I’d say so. Though she’s a lot less stand-offish here.”
Ahhh, yes. He knew of her. He also probably got on her nerves like he tended to do with the more surly types. “I never had the pleasure of really dealing with her in the dreams, although I know she served as an arcane advisor for the Inquisition,” Hawke recalled, rubbing his chin. “I’d also imagine she’d get her stand-offishness from someone in her lineage - what’s the mum-in-law like?”
He didn’t any of that to worry about. Legally speaking, he supposed he did have his own mother-in-law out there but he wouldn’t recognize her as such - she’d treated Bela like a bloody commodity and that was enough for him to want to snap the bones in her neck, and he’d hope to never come across the woman. More for his wife’s sake.
“Flemeth is...how do I even begin? Cryptic and a little sarcastic and thinks she knows everything.” Maia made a face. “I had to kill her, in my dreams, but Morrigan has told me she somehow survived. Because of course she did.”
Wait. What?
“Rewind that,” Hawke motioned, thankfully he hadn’t been mid-sip otherwise he would have choked or sprayed it out of his mouth like some hairy human fountain. “Flemeth. Are we talking oddly attractive, dragon-horned, cat-eyed Flemeth?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call her dragonhorned but she did turn into a dragon.” Maia rubbed the back of her neck. “She was almost as hard to defeat as the High Dragon at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Why?”
Maker’s balls, small world. Or worlds, he guessed. That suddenly explained quite a bit about his initial meeting with the ‘witch of the wilds,’ and before answering Hawke let out a long, drawn out sigh. “Well,” he began, shifting almost uncomfortably in his chair. He didn’t quite know what to make of Flemeth even after all this time. “If it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t have made the passage from Lothering to Kirkwall during the Blight. I also carried her in my pocket for about a year in amulet-form? Lovely dragon-woman, in that attractively terrifying sort of way.”
Flemeth was a mystery he hadn’t unraveled - it was one of the oddest things to have happened to him, as fleeting as her presence was.
“Andraste’s tits. So it’s your fault she’s alive?” Maia raised her eyebrows, though she didn’t sound mad. Mostly she was teasing. “That woman probably has fifteen different contingencies for just about any situation. I just wish she could have shared her secret for turning into a dragon.”
“She saved our arses, and could have eaten us for dinner if she’d wanted to,” Hawke shrugged. “My sister had just been pummeled to the ground until her skull was crushed by an ogre, I watched a close friend of mine kill her husband because he was infected with the taint, and we were bollocks deep in dark spawn - I was ever thankful, and ever desperate.”
Not like he’d known Flemeth’s past. Though he, too, wished she would share the secret for turning into a dragon. “I had to deliver that thing to a Dalish Keeper, some ritual was done, and then there she was again. Pissed off elsewhere after that.”
Maia grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t being serious. I’d have taken just about any deal in your situation too. Probably worse ones.”
“As long as my sister doesn’t get killed during a Blight, I’m well,” he went on, waving an arm dismissively - being overprotective was ingrained in his ‘big brother’ genes. He’d lost his mother here, but he’d be damned if he lost Bethany here, too. “You’re marrying into quite the family, then. Are they on good terms?”
Maia couldn’t even promise that. A blight could happen, and she’d be the first recruiting Gray Wardens if any wanted to volunteer. If Bethany wanted to volunteer (or Maker forbid got the taint), she’d take it, family tension or not. But she nodded anyway. “I wouldn’t want to see you lose her again. Once is quite enough, I’m sure.” She snorted, “Flemeth and Morrigan? Hardly. Morrigan would sooner see her in a grave.”
Tensions with a woman like Flemeth seemed like a dangerous gamble. Hawke at least had his wits to do his best not to get on her bad side, even with how short their interaction had been. There was some noise from upstairs - Gamlen being difficult, probably - but he ignored it. “I take it she won’t know about your blessed nuptials? Sometimes heartwarming moments like that can bring a family together.” He shrugged. “Assuming there’s actually a heart beneath that draconic demeanor.”
“I’m sure she’ll find out eventually, if she’s even half as cunning as she is in the dreams. I’m probably more mentally prepared for it than Morrigan is. They had their own falling out.” Maia was wary of Flemeth in the dreams but not outright dismissive, but it was amazing the things you’d do for your crushes friends. “I think, in her own way, she does care about Morrigan.”
“I hope all the best for you two in that department,” Hawke sympathized. “Family quarrels can be a nightmare but if there’s love in there, somewhere, there’s a chance of it working out. Might have to dig it out of both of them already, but you’re quite the charmer so who could deny you?” Maia was so cheeky, he could almost literally pinch her very cheeks (face ones, this wasn’t Alabama) - no wonder they were related. “If you two want to use The Hanged Man for anything - engagement party, wedding reception, bachelorette, let me know. There are rooms on the second floor.”
The suite, of course, was done in the spirit of Varric’s own room back in Kirkwall. It was spacious and his favorite, but he was also a little biased about the dwarven glory that’d been his best friend in Kirkwall.
“Something tells me it would best be suited to the bachelorette party,” Maia said. Though she thought Morrigan might object to the best parts of one. She flashed him a cheeky grin. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
Hawke raised his beer, mirroring the exact grin. “That, I’m open to. Just let me know. I promise I won’t strip and put my junk in your fiancee’s face as a surprise strip tease.”
His junk would probably be removed if that was the case so the danger was, at least, an incentive.